


Stumbling Towards Something Real

by Ignaz Wisdom (ignaz)



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-11
Updated: 2007-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:09:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignaz/pseuds/Ignaz%20Wisdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>House and Wilson on holiday in Mexico.</em>  (A flagrant excuse for smut, basically.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stumbling Towards Something Real

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this to cheer myself up, then expanded it to cheer a friend up, then expanded it more to cheer myself up ... it's been that kind of month (and change). If you'd like to contribute to the cheering up effort -- your country, whatever it may be, salutes you! -- feel free to leave a comment. This is a standalone, but you might think of it as a sequel to [Crossing Borders](http://ignaz.betweenthepages.org/crossing.html). Thank you to my darling rubberbutton for beta reading on short notice.

The day is perfect, beautiful, postcard-worthy -- or at least that's what House assumes. He hasn't opened his eyes for nearly an hour. The mid-day sun beating down on him feels amazing enough, though, while the occasional breeze keeps the heat from being suffocating.

A shadow passes over his face. He opens one eye and peers through his sunglasses. Wilson is standing over him, soaking wet, beads of saltwater sliding down his torso and dripping off his tousled hair. His swim trunks are sagging a little with the extra weight of the water. House's beach chair puts him at eye-level with Wilson's crotch.

House smirks. In the years since his last real vacation, he forgot how much fun they could be. He reaches over the side of the chair for his half-empty beer bottle and puts it to his lips.

"Have a nice swim?"

"It's like bathwater out there." Wilson's feet are covered with a layer of white sand. When he turns his head to look back at the ocean, a droplet of water falls on House's forearm. House stares at it, then raises his arm, sticks out his tongue, and laps it up.

"You ready to go back in for a while? I thought we could have lunch, put on more sunblock ..."

"You and your sunblock," House mutters.

"If you don't want to wear any, don't take an oncologist to the beach."

House hits his own forehead, open-palmed. "Of course. What was I thinking? Next time, I'll bring a supermodel."

"No dice. Models have to worry about their skin, too."

"They don't have to worry about _my_ skin."

Wilson sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, and then puts his hands on his bare hips, but it's mostly a show. He doesn't even look annoyed. The tension that has been in his face for weeks is gone.

"One hour," he says, placating. "We'll go up, have something to eat, then come back down."

House eyes Wilson up and down, entertaining thoughts about doing things to him that aren't the least bit appropriate for a public, family beach, and bites the inside of his cheek.

"Sure," he lies, and reaches for his shirt. "One hour."

* * *

Wilson's hair is already drying by the time they make it back to the room. House stares at a wet strand at the nape of his neck and pushes Wilson through the doorway just before leaning in and licking the skin immediately below it.

"Mmm," Wilson says, stopping short in the front hallway between kitchen and bedroom. House nearly runs into his back; he throws the cane aside and grabs Wilson's shoulders to steady himself, giving him the advantage of being able to hold Wilson still while he goes in for another lick. Wilson's neck tastes salty, the skin underneath warm from the sun.

"I was going to make lunch," Wilson says uncertainly, ending on a sigh as House turns the licks into gentle sucks. The ocean tastes good on his neck. Even better on his jaw. He runs his hands down Wilson's arms, down the front of his body, down to where bare skin meets damp shorts, and wonders where else the flavor of salt can be found on his body.

"Lunch can wait. But if you make a crack about being hungry for something else, I'm limping right out of here."

Wilson chuckles, the tremors running from his body into House's. He arches his neck and lets his head fall back onto House's shoulder, his mouth seeking contact. It's awkward, kissing like this, their lips barely grazing, Wilson's arm reaching back to hold them together, but it gives House free rein to map Wilson's stretched torso, hands skimming over muscle and the faint hardness of ribcage, fingers carding through the rough hair below his navel, leading down to the waistband of his swim trunks, which House summarily breaches.

Wilson huffs out a breath undercut by a nascent moan when House touches him, gently squeezing his dick, cupping his balls. It's a good sound, a sound that has brought House over the edge more than once now, one that's making him hard already. Unfortunately, it's also making it harder for them to kiss. He doesn't want Wilson to suffocate before the fun really starts. It would put a serious damper on their vacation, and he isn't sure how he'd manage to get the body back to New Jersey.

He hooks his fingers under the waistband of Wilson's trunks and pushes them down a few inches, then gives Wilson an encouraging shove towards the bedroom. Wilson doesn't even protest, just walks away toward the bed while sliding his swimsuit the rest of the way off and kicking it across the room.

House leans against the door frame, admiring his ass.

Wilson flops onto the bed on his back, then looks expectantly at House, still fully dressed, still hanging out in the doorway. When House doesn't move, he spreads his legs further, slides a hand down to his cock, and wraps his fingers around it, giving himself an experimental stroke or two.

"This is more fun when we're not on opposite sides of the room," Wilson huffs from the bed. His hand moves up and down; his thumb brushes over the head of his erection and he sucks in a harsh breath.

House's fingers tighten of their own volition. "Don't," he says, proud of how stable and authoritative it sounds.

Wilson, with no respect whatsoever, jerks his cock faster and snorts a laugh. "Try and stop me."

House stops him. He crosses the room with as much grace as he can muster from having spent all day reclining in a beach chair and climbs into bed. They tussle and tangle until Wilson is forced, grinning, to stop touching himself and put his hands over his head. House kisses him, wet and messy and with hardly any finesse at all, sucking the taste of saltwater off his lips and chin. They kiss for what feels like ages.

"You're kind of overdressed for this party," Wilson mutters, the words barely decipherable with his lips pressed to House's face. Stunned stupid with lust, House actually has to look down to realize that yes, he really is still wearing the clothes he'd worn at the beach. Naturally he blames Wilson for this state of affairs, for just shucking off his clothes and going right for his own dick and making House forget about everything but kissing him. He scowls at Wilson for being a distraction, then scowls some more when Wilson doesn't offer any assistance with the disrobing, but Wilson just puts on his blankly innocent _who, me?_ expression and then opens his hands, still stretched above his head where House put them, as if to demonstrate his helplessness.

He waits for House to fumble out of his shirt and shorts.

"I'm liking this afternoon delight thing," he says, straight-faced.

House looks at him skeptically. "Is there any time of day when you _don't_ like sex?"

He seems to think about it. "I don't know. I haven't tried having sex around the clock. You ..." He frowns. "You want to test your hypothesis?"

He's not nearly as cute as he thinks he is, so House shuts him up by sticking his own tongue in Wilson's mouth. Wilson kisses back and then wiggles his fingers in House's face, taunting him a little, until House grabs his wrists and puts Wilson's fingers in his mouth. They're salty too, a little bit cold, the fingertips pruned slightly from having been in the water. He sucks the index and middle fingers while Wilson watches, eyes slitted and dark.

Wilson eventually starts squirming under him, arching his back until House can feel the hot, wet brush of Wilson's cockhead against his own abdomen. He pulls the fingers out of his mouth, starts sucking on an earlobe instead, and mutters, "Pushy." Wilson thrusts upward again and calls him a cock-tease.

House ignores him and his pushy dick and holds Wilson's arm up so he can lap at his wrist, at the soft fleshy inside of his elbow. The salt is stronger there for some reason, and he lingers for a while, enjoying the taste almost as much as he's enjoying Wilson's confusion at his choice of erogenous zones.

He slides down just far enough to get his mouth on a nipple, a much more conventional site, and licks until the sea-taste is gone and only skin remains beneath. Then he tries worrying it with his teeth. They're not that sensitive and he knows it, but Wilson still makes appreciative sounds in between the pleading sounds, sounds that insist on having House's mouth elsewhere. When Wilson hisses, House takes that as his cue to switch to the other nipple. Wilson answers with a groan that sounds suspiciously in the middle like a whimper. House makes a mental note to mock him for it later, but he's held out long enough to establish that he's in control of the situation and at this point, he's just torturing them both. When Wilson puts a hand on his shoulder and gently but firmly pushes him further down the length of his body, House doesn't resist. He runs his tongue over the salty skin of Wilson's belly, sticks his nose in the trail of soft hair that leads down from his navel, and finally finds himself staring at Wilson's cock as it curves up over his belly. He looks painfully hard, swollen and dark, and the tip is shiny with precome, which House immediately laps up, appreciating the contrast between the bitter flavor and the salt on the rest of Wilson's body.

Wilson releases a ragged sigh and shifts his hips, seeking more contact, just as House pulls his tongue back. "Please," he says quietly, sounding desperate and half-broken. His hand comes down to wrap around the base of his cock. Then, amused and clearly self-deprecating: "Don't make me ask again."

Triumphant, House considers doing just that, but Wilson's hand is already stroking again, and his own mouth is watering, so instead he leans down again and sucks the head of Wilson's cock into his mouth. From above him comes a near-explosive cry, pure pleasure and relief, and suddenly a set of fingers are carding through his hair, not pushing or even directing but just holding on. Wilson's other hand is still around his erection, guiding it into House's mouth, so House uses one hand to brace himself upright and lets the other stroke the inside of Wilson's thigh.

As he expected, he can still find the sea taste here, alongside the tang of precome and the musky flavor he's come to identify as purely Wilson, a taste entirely his own, concentrated here where the skin is velvet-soft and smooth. He slides his mouth down the length of Wilson's cock until his lips touch Wilson's fist, still wrapped around the base, and then he slides back, hollowing his cheeks and sucking hard. He goes down again, laving the underside with his tongue, and gets a rhythm going, taking the noises Wilson makes and the slight movements of his hips and hands as signs that everything is good. They're both making noise; he's sucking and slurping and the wet sounds are a little embarrassing but he knows Wilson loves them, loves listening to the sound of House sucking him off. His free hand reaches between Wilson's legs to cup his balls, play with them a little, roll them between his fingers. When Wilson thrusts upward, groaning, House moves that hand to Wilson's hip and firmly holds him down.

He might enjoy this a little too much for the bad-ass he likes to think he is, but nobody has to know that besides himself and Wilson.

He keeps it going, sucking for long, sweet minutes until his jaw starts aching -- and then he draws back a little, eases up, because when it starts to hurt is right about when Wilson starts to come, and he isn't ready for this to be over just yet. He lets Wilson's cock slip from his mouth with a wet popping sound and licks it all over instead. Eventually he takes it back in again, long sucks up and down the length, until Wilson cups his face, tilting it upward until their eyes can meet, and softly asks, "Can I fuck you?"

His heart skips a beat and he feels his own dick swell. He blinks slowly, mouth still stretched and full, and doesn't answer either way -- just keeps sucking for a while, taking his damn time. He thinks about saying no, just for the hell of it, just to spite Wilson, just to get his way ... but fuck, he _wants_ to be fucked now; he didn't even realize how much he wanted it until Wilson asked. Besides, things are good between them now, as good as they've ever been throughout the rocky history of their friendship. They've been through a living hell and by all rights, they shouldn't have survived it as friends, let alone like this. But here they are, together, at least eighty percent functional even on the bad days, and this is the best he's been in years. He can control his impulses long enough to be good to Wilson. Most of the time. At least he knows he can do it here, in bed, with Wilson naked under him, hard in his mouth, when they're both at their most vulnerable.

He lets another minute elapse before he pulls away, rolls his eyes to demonstrate how put-upon he really is, and climbs back up the bed to lie on his stomach, face on the unoccupied pillow, one leg drawn up. Wilson reacts immediately, turning onto his side to reach for the condoms and slick they put on the bedside table when they first unpacked. One of the perks of taking a big gay vacation with your boyfriend, House figured: guys didn't care about finding a discreet location for stashing the sex paraphernalia. He hears a faint ripping sound -- the condom wrapper -- before Wilson rolls back towards him and puts one warm, slippery finger inside him.

It feels good, it always does, that first penetration, the first time Wilson breaches his body with long fingers that know exactly where to touch, deep inside. House lets his guard down long enough to sigh with pleasure and shifts to give them both more room. Wilson slides a second finger inside and that one burns a little, but it's a good burn, the familiar stretch of muscles, the familiar anticipation. Wilson is very close behind him, so close that he can feel the brush of Wilson's erection against the back of his thigh. He's sweating; he can feel that, too.

Then Wilson is pushing his good leg further up, Wilson's hands are on his ass and Wilson's cock is pressing against his opening and there it is, the rush of terror, the rush of arousal, the memory of every other time they've done this -- which hasn't been that many times, but House is planning on a lot more, because he's way too old to find another lover, never mind finding and breaking in another best friend -- and then he's exhaling and relaxing and Wilson is pushing forward, pushing inside, pushing _inside him_, and it's ...

Uncomfortable. It always is, for the first few seconds, until he screws his face up and his body adjusts again, recognizing the familiar sensation. The first time completely sucked for several minutes, but they're both better at it now, better at knowing each other, and it doesn't take long for him to push back or for Wilson to take the hint, wrapping an arm tightly around House's waist and sliding out before sliding back in again, smooth as a hot knife through butter.

He's stretched and full again, hard cock inside him, and it occurs to him to wonder if he's letting Wilson stick his dick in him too often, whether that's going to ruin his street cred, but then Wilson brushes his prostate and all he can see is stars and all he can think about is getting that to happen again and _soon_. Wilson is plastered against his back, fingers splayed on his chest as if anchoring him, and he can hear Wilson panting and even moaning a little, breathing hard against the nape of his neck, into his ear. He reaches for his own erection, flagging earlier but now back in all its glory, but he gets there at the same moment that Wilson does, and Wilson's hand swats the other hand away before taking over, fisting House's cock, jerking him steadily with fingers still slippery from the lube.

It's a full-scale assault. He wants to rock forward into Wilson's hot, slick hand and back onto his hot, hard length; the indecision alone nearly undoes him. Every thrust, every slide of fist on cock sends shivers of pleasure through him and he resolves to just kick back and let Wilson do all the work -- another perk of being with a guy, not that he's comparing. He braces himself on the bed and lets sensation wash over him, wave after wave, then turns his head to meet Wilson's saltwater mouth, kissing like they're starving for it.

The tension in his body builds, reaches its crescendo, and he comes almost before he even realizes it's happening. Wilson stops fucking him for the duration, his cock still buried inside, opting to hold as still as he can -- which isn't very still, because he's trembling, practically shuddering with the strain of not thrusting. House comes hard, helplessly, in four staggered pulses, splattering the sheets and his own abdomen and probably Wilson's arm. He gasps for air and tenses, muscles tightening and clenching, and he has to dislodge the hand moving on his cock before oversensitivity sets in and Wilson's caresses start to hurt.

When the tumult dies down, Wilson whispers "Okay?" into his ear. House thinks it's probably the dumbest question he's ever asked, but that doesn't matter, since Wilson doesn't wait for an answer. He withdraws almost the entire way, agonizingly slow, before sliding back in with a long, drawn-out groan. He starts fucking again in earnest, hips jerking, the wet, rhythmic sounds of skin against skin filling the room, but sated as he is, House has enough brainpower to tell that Wilson is close to the edge -- and sure enough, the timing so perfect that House breaks into a smirk, Wilson grunts, spasms, and stops. A moment later, House finds himself flattened under Wilson's dead weight.

If he falls asleep like that, House is going to kill him.

* * *

He wakes up alone. He isn't sure how much time has elapsed, but a glance at the red digits of the clock next to the bed tell him that he snoozed for two hours. Wilson probably ditched him for the beach; he hated wasting the sunny daylight hours cooped up in the room.

House sits up, wincing a little. He's starving. He's also sticky. He looks down at his stomach and winces again; he'd slept in the wet spot and now he's covered in dried semen and Astroglide. He stares forlornly at the long walk between the bed and the bathroom before he spots his cane, leaning neatly against the mattress.

He wets the nearest towel in the sink and wipes the mess off, then retrieves his clothes and wanders out to the balcony, where Wilson is leaning on the rail, looking down the four stories to the pool below, where half a dozen vacationing children are playing Marco Polo, replete with shrieking and splashing.

"If you're looking for blunt, heavy objects to drop, I think we could spare the broken VCR. Or that crap that you think passes for beach reading."

A corner of Wilson's mouth turns up, but he doesn't look over. His face is inscrutable. House settles next to him, leaning backwards, elbows on the rail.

"Okay, I'll bite. What are you thinking about, o sage one?"

"Starting some of my colorectal patients on anti-angiogenics. Also, that I'm pretty lucky, all things considered."

"That's what you think _now_. Just wait till you see what I've done to your face towel."

That gets a slightly bigger smile. Wilson opens his mouth as if to speak again, then closes it and shoots House a suspicious look. "You're going to mock me."

"Probably," House agrees.

Wilson nods, resigned. "It's just that ..."

"You're desperately in love with me?" House helpfully suggests.

"Desperate is a good word for it," Wilson says dryly. "But no, that wasn't what I was going to say. I just -- with everything that's happened, I just never ... expected ... that we'd end up ... here."

He chooses his words very carefully, which means they're not the ones he really wants to be using. _Imagined_, maybe. _Hoped_. And _here_ is more than just the beach or the balcony, more than a physical place.

Part of House wants to be hurt that Wilson can't bring himself to say what he actually means; part of him knows it's a good thing for them that Wilson doesn't have to.

So he bites back the things he wants to say -- mostly about Wilson being a sappy homo -- and the things he means to say -- _me neither_, _I'm glad we did_, _I love you_ \-- and instead says, "Wanna rub sunscreen on my back?" He adds an eyebrow wiggle for good measure.

Wilson looks at him, eyes alight, and they turn to go back inside.


End file.
